Just before the end of the year, this issue of our newsletter will provide you with the latest news from our products and destinations:

The Hilton Group comes to Port Moresby, Malindo Air now offers a daily direct service from Kuala Lumpur to Perth and in 2016 visitors to Ningaloo Reef will for the first time in the world not only be able to swim with whale sharks, but also with humpback whales.

Furthermore, you will meet the first female pilot in Papua New Guinea who successfully completed Air Niugini’s cadet program.

And of course, this is the time of the year where we would like to thank you for the great collaboration in 2015 and where we wish you and your beloved ones a merry Christmas and a good start into the New Year.

We are looking forward to a successful 2016 with you!

Your Team TCMG

Latest news

Swimming with humpbacks at Ningaloo

The chance to swim with majestic humpback whales in WA will be trialled at Ningaloo Marine Park next year to grow ecotourism in the region. Existing licensed whale shark tour companies will be involved in the humpback trial, which aims to provide new wilderness experiences for visitors and expand the World Heritage area’s tourist season. The trial is due to start around June 2016 when migrating whales arrive in Ningaloo Marine Park. For more information head to the Tourism WA corporate website...

New hotels in Perth and Fremantle

COMO The TreasuryHoused in what was originally Perth’s town hall before being occupied by state government offices – including the treasury, the four-storey building on Cathedral Avenue in the CBD sat unused for nearly 20 years prior to the restoration of the site in 2012. COMO The Treasury, a 48 room property, opened on 15th October 2015 and brings, according to general manager Anneke Brown, a new level of “elegance & sophistication” to the hotel sector in Perth.

SeashellsSeashells Fremantle, the fifth property of the award-winning Seashells Hospitality Group, is part of a stunning new development known as Richmond Quarter in East Fremantle. The fourth and fifth floors of the attractive development will be devoted to 24 spacious short-stay apartments. Seashells Fremantle and Richmond Quarter are located within the sought-after George Street precinct, and a short stroll to the picturesque Swan River. Bookings for Seashells Fremantle can soon be made and information will be available on the website in the new year. The property will be open in the first quarter of 2016.

Kalbarri Skywalk

Breathtaking skywalks in Kalbarri National Park, along Western Australia’s Coral Coast, will become a major tourism draw card for the region, providing stunning vistas of the Murchison River Gorge. As part of a $20 Million tourism initiative, two new 100 meter high skywalks will be installed at the Inyaka Wookai Watju site, otherwise known as the West Loop. The skywalks will extend 12 and 20 metres beyond the gorge. Construction will begin in 2016 and is expected to be completed by 2017. Read more…

WA’s Instagram captures 50.000 followers

The official @WesternAustralia Instagram account is celebrating major milestones – surpassing 50.000 followers and notching up almost eight million “likes” for spectacular images of the State. The account, managed by Tourism WA, shared images or videos tagged with @WesternAustralia or #thisisWA with more than 54.000 followers around the world. The most popular image is of a curious quokka and her joey, and the top videois of frolicking dolphins near Esperance. Further information...

Perth Airport News

Perth first Australian city to welcome Malindo AirPerth became the first Australian city on Malindo Air’s network when the airline’s inaugural flight from Kuala Lumpur landed at Perth Airport on 19th November 2015. The new daily service between Perth and Kuala Lumpur is great news for WA’s tourism industry and a sign of the Asian tourism market’s appetite to visit WA. For the European market Kuala Lumpur becomes another hub for direct flights into Perth.More...

New, direct airport bus in Perth: route 380Perth's first direct bus route from the CBD to the airport precinct started on November 1, 2015 aptly named “Route 380” after the world's largest passenger airliner. At a cost of $4.50 from the city, it is a very economical 40 minute trip to terminal 1 and 2. The bus will run every half hour. More...

Margaret River, Australia’s “Must-Visit Food Region”

The Margaret River region is Australia’s “Must-Visit Food Region” according to the Australian Traveller magazine’s “People’s Choice Awards”. The region beat tough competition from Barossa Valley, Hunter Valley and Yarra Valley to claim the top spot in the award category voted on by 4.000 magazine readers. Margaret River also claimed third place in the “Best Wine Region” category.

The Australian Traveller team cited the annual Margaret River Gourmet Escape event, as well as the region’s “farm-to-fork” mentality as central to its success.

Visitors travelling to Western Australia and visiting Fremantle can now find information – feature articles, a lift out events calendar, discount coupons, travel info and a map – in the new “Fremantle story magazine” that will be published quarterly. This print magazine will also be available in a PDF version online. Read the launch edition here…

With “Freo” having been ranked a “Top Ten City” in Lonely Planet’s Best in Travel for 2016 edition, it definitely is time to visit Fremantle now!

A Green Island Christmas

Christmas Day on a tropical island on the Great Barrier Reef is certainly a special way to celebrate! As well as a treat for house guests, there are limited seats available for day visitors to join in the celebrations at Green Island. After feasting to their content – Green Island Resort’s Chef Shuki Salem has created a mouth-watering buffet lunch full of fresh seasonal produce – guests can enjoy the island surrounds with a leisurely stroll through the rainforest, snorkel or view the reef from a glass bottom boat.

Hilton comes to PNG

The landscape of Port Moresby will be forever transformed following the launching of the K 1.1 billion Hilton Hotel in Port Moresby in September 2015. The Star Mountain Plaza development at Hohola will house a modern 15 storey Hilton Hotel. With the entry of the Hilton Group in PNG for the first time, Government hopes that confidence in business and tourism in PNG will be reinforced.

The stage one development will also include a car park, a convention centre modeled on the traditional long house of Lake Kutubu and a residential tower with 160 apartments. They will all be completed by mid 2017 in time for the APEC Leaders meeting in 2018. Read more...

New Adventure product offering in Milne Bay, PNG

PNG Trekking Adventures offers a new tour in the surroundings of Alotao, Milne Bay, one of the most beautiful areas of Papua New Guinea. This trekking and paddling expedition is raw and out there. Very few tourists have walked nor have they paddled here. The scouting of this area in order to make this tour happen has only been carried out in October 2014. The six day tour includes culture & history, trekking & kayaking, stand up paddle boarding and overnights in guest house in small villages along the way. See detailed tour description...

Meet...

… Captain Beverly Pakii, first female Air Niugini pilot out of the airline’s cadet program

A young, Papua New Guinean female pilot has made history by becoming a first woman to have achieved her command on Dash 8 aircraft under Air Niugini’s pilot cadet program. Captain Beverly Pakii’s achievement is the first for the airline since Air Niguini’s pilot cadet program started in the 1970s. The 29 year old Captain operated her first commercial flight on 12th March 2015 on Air Niugini’s subsidiary company “Link PNG” from Port Moresby to Lihir in New Ireland, then continued to Tokua airport in East New Britain and back to the capital.

Captain Pakii started with Air Niugini as a cadet in 2004. After completing her training at PPT flying School at Coffs Harbour, New South Wales (Australia), as well as her studies, she returned to Air Niugini in 2006 where she operated as a First Officer on Dash 8 aircraft to make the hours as required for all cadets. After meeting the minimum hours, she underwent command practice in preparation to becoming a captain. The vigorous and comprehensive pilot training processes took the young pilot 10 years before achieving her command on Dash 8 aircraft.

Beverly Pakii also broke another record earlier this year as captain of the first “all women aircrew” in the skies of Papua New Guinea on the Link PNG flight operated on 29th May 2015.

In the last week of November, TCMG took its clients on a conjoint Road Show around German speaking Europe. Tourism Western Australia, Papua New Guinea TPA, Delaware North Australia Parks & Resorts, Meridian and Cayman Villas Port Douglas, the National Opal Collection, Crikey Camper Hire as well as Australia Zoo visited the cities of Zurich, Munich, Duesseldorf and Hamburg where they trained a total of 150 German and Swiss travel agents and Product Management teams. The lucky winners of John Hayme’s generous prize – a 5 night stay at Meridian Port Douglas with a lot of great extras such as day tours to the reef and into Daintree National Park – will be soon discovering his fantastic product in real.

Rhett and Stella visited Australia Zoo

Rhett and Stella visited Australia Zoo on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast in early November to familiarise themselves with the product and to meet the Australia Zoo team.

TCMG will be representing Australia Zoo in the UK and Europe. It’s the perfect product for your clients to experience not only the beauty of the Australian Fauna such as Dingos and Koalas up close and personal, but of course to witness the amazing Crocodile show from the safety of the Crocoseum – a 2.000 seat facility where you can see an amazing flying show of Australian Birds of Prey and Parrots and of course meet Aggro – the most famous Crocodile at Australia Zoo.

You can also meet Giraffe, Rhino, giant Aldabran tortises – the largest species of tortoise in the world and the soon to be reintroduced Elephant.

The Australia Zoo is all about animal interaction and preservation with monies generated going toward the conservation projects of the Irwin family in Australia, Asia and Africa.

The attached hospital dedicated to saving the endangered Koala also saves about 1.000 Koalas a year which have been run over or attacked by dogs.

In early October, Christiane visited the new Lizard Island for a site inspection and a meeting with the team, but also had the chance to experience some of the island’s offerings, such as a scenic flight to Lizard Island with most enjoyable views on the reef, snorkeling around the island, a tour to Blue Lagoon, a glass canoe tour around the island and a spa treatment.

Christiane also visited Heron Islandand Kings Canyon Resortwhere she also did site inspections of the properties and met with the teams. On Heron Island she watched turtles arriving on the island, did a snorkeling trip to Wistrari Reef and a semi-submersible trip to the reef. At Kings Canyon, Christiane experienced a 4WD through the desert and also had the chance to go on a helicopter flight over the canyon. Furthermore, she participated in a rim walk in the Kings Canyon National Park and visited local Indigenous communities.

For any questions regarding the properties of Delaware North in Australia, give Christiane a call or send her an email (see contact details below).

Product manager on adventure tour through Papua New Guinea

From 18th to 30th September, Stella and Rhett took five product managers from Norway, Denmark, Germany, The Netherlands and Switzerland as well as a radio journalist from Poland on an adventure trip through Papua New Guinea.

After some amazing diving in the underwater paradises of Tawali Resort (Milne Bay), the participants discovered the highlands. They stayed at Rondon Ridge and Magic Mountain Lodge, witnessed Sing Sings and had some exciting encounters with locals. They finished off their trip with the attendance at the Lukim PNG Nau trade fair.

From 15th to 29th September Cornelia escorted four German travel writers to Papua New Guinea where they discovered the country’s tropical island world. The itinerary included a stay at Tawali Resort (Milne Bay) with a visit to Fergusson Island, a stay at “Nuli Sapi” on Logeia Island (Lonely Planet Top 10 Eco Stay 2015, Milne Bay) and also a visit in the volcano town of Rabaul with a day trip to Mioko Island (East New Britain).

Highlights of the journey were birdwatching and snorkeling in Tawali, swimming with Manta Rays in Nuli Sapi, the Baining Fire Dancer in Rabaul as well as the hike to the summit of Mount Kabiu from where the group enjoyed great views on the volcano Tarvurvur.

Western Australian regions visit Europe

David O’Malley from Australia’s Coral Coast and Jac Eerbeek from Australia’s Golden Outback visited Europe in late September to showcase their regions to agents and operators. Together with Tourism Western Australia Germany they travelled through Germany, Switzerland and France. In these three countries, they visited seven cities and had meetings with more than 20 key trade partners. About 100 travel agents were trained on WA, ACC and AGO.

The WA regions also visited the UK where they met with wholesalers, Tourism Western Australia UK and Tourism Australia. At an evening event they had the opportunity to meet with 30 travel agents from London and surrounds, primarily Aussie Specialists, and to inform them about their regions.

Clients‘ activity and upcoming sales trips

Papua New GuineaOn 19th and 20th January, Stella and Rhett along with the PNG Dive Association, more precisely Tawali Resort, Walindi and MV Febrina, will organise a product training workshop for Knecht Reisen and Hotelplan in Zurich. Still together with the PNG Dive Association they will then attend the trade shows Boot in Düsseldorf (23rd to 25th January) and FESPO in Zurich (28th to 31st January). Tufi Resort, Lissenung Island, Tawali Resort and Walindi with MV Febrina will be present at Boot where on the evening of 23rd January we will co-host with Diving Specials a PNG Evening in Düsseldorf. For FESPO, Tufi Resort and Tawali will be represented by Stella and Rhett.

Delaware North Australia Parks & ResortsIn January and February , we will continue to run our highly effective webinar series on the new Lizard Island and your chance to win a beautiful Spa Candle from the Resort. To register for the event please touch base with Christiane.

Quicksilver GroupAfter his recent extended sales trip through The Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and France together with Michael Healy, the Quicksilver Group Director of Sales and Marketing, Craig is planning on returning to Germany and Switzerland for more sales calls in January and February. In January Craig and Rhett will also attend the trade days at Vakantiebeurs in Utrecht (Netherlands) to meet with Quicksilver Goup’s key trade partners. In February Craig will visit the BIT travel show in Milano (Italy).

Western AustraliaIn January, Andy will attend the trade fares FESPO in Zurich and CMT in Stuttgart. TWA will be present at a shared stand with other Australian states.

Australia ZooWe are in the process of producing new internationally ready marketing collateral for Australia Zoo (in both English and German) which will be ready to send out to you in mid-January. This will provide you with the perfect sales story to sell the product to your clients. Australia Zoo is commissionable to you at 20%.

Participate in our webinars

If you are interested in listening to the latest updates on the Delaware Resorts in Australia (Lizard Island, Heron Island, Kings Canyon Resort and El Questro) or if you wish to hear about Meridian Port Douglas and Cayman Villas Port Douglas, please request a webinar with Christiane (contact information below).

In a 40 minute presentation that you can follow on your computer, Christiane will provide you and your reservations team with the latest news. Currently Christiane has availabilities for January, February and March 2016.

How it works? You agree on a date and an exact time. Once you have received the webinar invitation from Christiane by email, you just have to follow the instructions. Every employee of your company can dial in to the webinar with a local number in your home country and follow the presentation individually.

TCMG comes to your office

Would you like to do an agent training or receive an update on our destinations Western Australia and Papua New Guinea or the products of Delaware North Australia Parks & Resorts, Quicksilver Group, Le Meridian Port Douglas, Cayman Villas, The National Opal Collection or Crikey Camper? Please contact Rhett, Stella, Christiane, Andy, Craig or Chris to organise a Webinar or a personal meeting in your office (contact information below).

What the press is saying

The most beautiful end of the earth – Adrian Pickshaus and Meiko Hermann travelled to Papua New Guinea. This is where they met bush pilots, crocodile hunters and proud tribal warriors. Lufthansa Magazin, November 2015. Read the article…

Papua New Guinea – Tropical islands far away from civilisation – The heavenly islands and underwater world of Papua New Guinea enchanted travel author Thilo Scheu. He went for a swim with local kids in the tropical waters. Web.de, November 2015. Read the article…

Golden Outback – Following the traces of gold rush history in Australia – Michael Marek and Sven Weniger followed the Golden Quest Discovery Trail to learn more about Western Australia’s gold rush history. Along the way, they discovered the biggest gold mine in the world, a historical brothel in Kalgoorlie and real outback pubs. WDR 5 radio, November 2015. Listen to the feature (in German)…

Wonderland Western Australia – Uta van Steen travelled to Australia’s Coral Coast and Australia’s North West. From her bucket list, she ticked off a whale shark swim at Ningaloo Reef, discovered the only beach polo tournament in Broome and spent a night in a wilderness camp next to the UNESCO world heritage site of the Bungle Bungles. Geo Saison, December 2015. Read the article…

1 night in Perth – Cosmo local Sarah Turnbull takes the readers on a bar hopping tour through Perth and shows them the hottest venues in town. Cosmopolitan, November 2015. Read the article…

The relaxed end of the world – Harald and Sabine Braun visited Australia’s South West where life follows its very own rhythm. They swam with wild dolphins in Rockingham and fell in love with Vanya Cullen’s wines. Brigitte Woman, November 2015.Read the article…

Luxury Cruising in Australia – In August, Ingrid Brunner travelled the Kimberley by boat. On board of the vessel “True North”, that is also equipped with a helicopter, she navigated to the most remote places in the region. an bord, November 2015. Read the article…